As promised, here are the books I read last year that I liked best. The top ten are arranged chronologically in the order I read them (first the six five-star reads and then the best of the four-star reads), because I don’t really think one stood out above the rest. And I share my other four-star reads at the end, since I didn’t do book reviews last year. Ultimately, this is about half the books I read last year, and I recommend them all:

Five-Star Reads

• The Door-to-Door Bookseller by Carsten Henn
  An older, lonely man who delivers books for a shop finds himself joined on his rounds by a young girl. And suddenly, his life — and those of his customers — begin to change in unexpected ways.
• Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
  A teen girl growing up in Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma sees no opportunities for her life to get better after her mother dies, she suffers tremendous injuries, and her father founders in grief. But, maybe, even in all the darkness, there is still light. Told in verse.
• Shark Heart by Emily Habeck
  A heartbreaking parable about losing a loved one to a devastating illness.
• Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
  A reread, this story is about a man who only discovers his humanity after he dies.
• Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy
  When an elderly woman inadvertently brings a mouse into her home, she finds there is a ripple effect, and her solitary and regimented days are suddenly filled with chaos and characters.
• October, October by Katya Balen
  On her 11th birthday, a young girl who lives alone in the woods with her father finds her life upended when he is suddenly hospitalized and she must stay in London with her mother, who moved away many years ago.

Rounding Out the Top Ten

• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
  A young woman must figure out how to respond when her oft-traveling father disappears, her guardian (her father’s well-off employer) curtails her freedom, and a book suddenly lands in her lap, inspiring a harrowing flight across space in pursuit of family and truth.
• Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin
  Translated from the French, this novel focuses on the caretaker of a graveyard. It alternates between flashbacks to how she arrived at her current profession, diary entries from a woman recently buried at the cemetery, and a more linear story about the caretaker and the woman’s son. Again, a novel about grief and awakening from it.
• You Are Here by David Nicholls
  A post-COVID novel told in alternating points of view between a male teacher who loves hiking and is battling PTSD and a female editor who has trouble leaving her London apartment until a friend from her past won’t take no about a walking holiday with her godson and some other friends. Ultimately a story about breaking out of your comfort zone and taking chances, even when that feels like the last thing you should do.
• Margo’s Got Money Problems by Rufi Thorpe
  A young community college student is impregnated by her English professor and then must find a way to stay afloat when she chooses to have the baby. After her ex-pro wrestler father moves in (fresh out of rehab for an addiction to pain meds) and she starts an OnlyFans account (where people will pay her for nude content), she must deal with the continued impact of people judging the decisions she makes for herself and her family.

Other Four-Star Reads 

Mystery

• Murder Under Her Skin by Stephen Spotswood
• The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

Fantasy/Romantasy

• A Power Unbound by Freya Marske
• Just Like Magic by Sarah Hogle
• Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree
• Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis
• A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle Jensen
• The Afterlife of Mal Caldera by Nadi Reed Perez
• The Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
• Mamo by Sas Milledge

Romance

• 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall
• A Home for the Holidays by Taylor Hahn

The Rest

• The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay (essays)
• A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck (kidlit)
• I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy: Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky (poetry)